I just found a snake in the garage

[Lady Whistledown]

Damn hot weather, think it was looking for a bit of shade.

Anyway, I heroically managed to dispatch it outside using a shovel...well I gave it a bit of a shove from arms length and it slithered quietly away into the bushes.

Having done my research, I think it was actually a puny grass snake as opposed to an adder, a stray python from a nearby pet shop, or a Western Brown from a one-off, Hurstpierpoint-based Steve Irwin documentary, but hey, you can't be too careful can you?

I am a regular Indiana Jones, I really am

 

[Easy 10]

Talking of snakes....this is on the Beeb today:

Surgery for blanket-eating python

Houdini the Burmese python gave his owner a shock after swallowing a queen-size electric blanket, including the electrical cord and control box.
X-rays showed the blanket's wires running through 8ft of the python's 12ft (3.6m) body and emergency surgery was needed to remove them.

Owner Karl Beznoska, of Ketchum in Idaho, US, believes the blanket become entangled in Houdini's rabbit dinner.

Vets say it would have taken the python six hours to swallow the blanket.

They believe 18-year-old Houdini would have died had they not performed the two-hour operation.

The vet who carried out the surgery, Karsten Fostvedt, said the "prognosis is great". Houdini is now recovering.

Neither Mr Fostvedt nor his colleague at Ketchum's St Francis Pet Clinic had operated on a snake before and had to telephone two specialists for advice after Houdini was brought in.

Mr Beznoska told the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper that he noticed Houdini was not looking well on Monday morning - and the blanket kept in his cage for warmth had disappeared.

He said the blanket must have got caught up in Houdini's rabbit dinner on Sunday, and the python continued to gulp down the blanket even after his food had gone.

"This is something I've never heard of or seen before," he said.

Mr Beznoska has had Houdini for 16 years and calls him "a good boy" and "very mellow and very friendly".

The 60lb (27kg) python is apparently something of a local celebrity, and a popular visitor to schools and libraries.

 

[Stinky Kat]

slow worm city central at the back of my garden, but they are not snakes are they?

 

[Marc]

I saw an Adder in a customers back garden once, wish I had my camera phone on me as I would've done a Steve Irwin type thing with it!

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I think I can safely assume it wasn't that particular snake that appeared in the garage.

It was closer to 12 inches than 12 feet

I didn't even scream, not bad for a girl eh?

 

[Franks Wild Years]

I saw a snake in my trousers.



Oh no, its a worm



And what was it doing wearing my trousers ?

 

[Stinky Kat]

do worms have legs?

 

[Lady Whistledown]

What does a slow worm look like?

Are they common in this country? I'm 99% sure the one I slung out was a grass snake, as adders have far more prominent markings, at least that's what I remember from school. It was dark green, with little white bits on its head.

 

[Franks Wild Years]

Trouser wearing worms have legs. Didn't you know that ?

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

One Slow worm, Edna

 

[Lady Whistledown]

One Slow worm, Edna

Definitely wasn't one of those. They're the ones who can shed their tails and regrow them if something grabs them, aren't they?

I should get a job with Steve Irwin



Whhooohhhooooooh! Check out this little beauty!

 

[Marc]

this is what I saw (simular anyway), customer lives in Forest Row

 

[Hiney]

I f***ing HATE snakes

Why did I open this thread?

 

[Lady Whistledown]

this is what I saw (simular anyway), customer lives in Forest Row

Definitely an adder.

When I was doing a residential training thing up in Ashford, they used to tell us to keep away from the bottom of the field nearby, as loads of adders used to nest there.

And I thought they were increasingly rare in this country.

Why is it never the most annoying creatures that are in danger of extinction? I mean pandas, they look all fluffy and appealing, and elephants- all big and friendly, in a Jungle Book kind of way. Yet they hover on the brink of dying out all the time, the furry idiots.

While wasps, for example, or cockroaches, or giant beetles like the one I found in my kitchen the other day, or earwigs, or craneflies, they just multiply happily, billions of times over.

Why can't wasps undergo a crisis instead of pandas or tigers? This planet has it so wrong

 

[Stinky Kat]

what purpose do wasps serve?

Adders eat rodents so they do something useful but wasps cant even make honey and always hassle you on the each when your orange maid melts

 

[Lady Whistledown]

what purpose do wasps serve?

Adders eat rodents so they do something useful but wasps cant even make honey and always hassle you on the each when your orange maid melts

Exactly. If there really was a God, he'd have made only useful, or pretty creatures wasps, on the other hand, are neither.

Moths are another one I'd put high up on my WWF Drive Them To Extinction List.

Particularly those ones that fly into your bedroom at night because you have a tiny little bedside light on for half a second (FFS! How in the world do you confuse this with the MOON, you furry bastards?) then, when you turn the light off, proceed to flap and buzz annoyingly around in the dark, meaning you can't see it but can't sleep anyway in case it comes near you. Grrrrrr!

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Woody : "Theres a snake in ma boots"

 

[Hiney]

Particularly those ones that fly into your bedroom at night because you have a tiny little bedside light on for half a second (FFS! How in the world do you confuse this with the MOON, you furry bastards?) then, when you turn the light off, proceed to flap and buzz annoyingly around in the dark, meaning you can't see it but can't sleep anyway in case it comes near you. Grrrrrr!

Unless of course you are Mrs Hiney. On the entry of a moth she DIVES under the covers and refuses to emerge until said furry bastard has been captured and either thrown out of the window or flushed down the BOG.

I then prepare myself for a bollocking as, despite risking life and limb LEAPING over the bed trying to capture the moth, she gets lairy if any of that powdery stuff gets left on the wall or ceiling as I crushed it.

Don't even get me started on her frankly PATHETIC attempts to embrace the Daddy Longlegs.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Unless of course you are Mrs Hiney. On the entry of a moth she DIVES under the covers and refuses to emerge until said furry bastard has been captured and either thrown out of the window or flushed down the BOG.

I then prepare myself for a bollocking as, despite risking life and limb LEAPING over the bed trying to capture the moth, she gets lairy if any of that powdery stuff gets left on the wall or ceiling as I crushed it.

Don't even get me started on her frankly PATHETIC attempts to embrace the Daddy Longlegs.

It's funny because it's true.

I just can't get over the fact that daddy longlegs, moths, midges etc all seem to be able to detect a pinprick of light from 5 miles away, even if you merely flash it on and off for a split second.

When it's this hot outside, you have to sit in with the windows shut to avoid your front room turning into the Insect House at London Zoo.

Embrace all of God's creatures: my arse.

 

[Stinkers Bridge]

Particularly those ones that fly into your bedroom at night because you have a tiny little bedside light on for half a second (FFS! How in the world do you confuse this with the MOON, you furry bastards?) then, when you turn the light off, proceed to flap and buzz annoyingly around in the dark, meaning you can't see it but can't sleep anyway in case it comes near you. Grrrrrr!

Totally agree. Only Last night I noticed a moth fluttering round my bedside lamp. Didn't give it much thought until after I had turned the light off and had settled down... moments later it landed on my face. I bravely brushed it off and proceeded to lay awake for the next 45 minutes in case it tried it on again.